FIRST STAR WARS FORCE AWAKENS TRAILER

It’s difficult to tell anything really important from a trailer, much less a teaser trailer, but let’s give it a shot with the upcoming STAR WARS EPISODE 7 with a new (or at this point, not so new) title, THE FORCE AWAKENS: Alas, the teaser takes the title literally… We open with a pan of what looks to be the desert planet of Tatooine (now, written months later, it's not that planet), and right when our eyes adjust to familiar nostalgic terrain, and a deep dark voice is muttering the words, “There has been an awakening, have you felt it,” it actually happens…

Wilson or Spalding?

Suddenly and quite stupidly, popping up like a groundhog provoked by a cattle prod, a black man rises into a nervous close-up… He’s wearing, of all things, a Stormtrooper uniform sans the mask…

Already this bizarre, awkward intro has caused much controversy… It seems that if you have a problem with this kickstart, you are racist… But the problem isn’t the color of the actor’s skin, but the melodramatic way he rises up into the frame, and, wearing that uniform, it seems straight out of SPACEBALLS or some kind of contrived STAR WARS parody, or perhaps a brand new installment of THE HANGOVER (you wake up in the middle of the desert wearing most of a Stormtrooper uniform from last night's costume party: what happened last night?)... But that’s only the beginning of a teaser that does in fact improve, but isn’t without a few questionable images…

The Falcon Returns

An R2 Unit’s head on top of what looks to be a soccer ball is rather peculiar… As a friend (Mark) hilariously pointed out on Facebook, "Kenny Baker must get dizzy as hell inside that thing."

This new rolling droid is awesomely made up for with a preparing army of fully-geared Stormtroopers, strategically poised for what feels like battle or surprise attack: an image reminiscent of WW2 troops ready to launch from their Normandy beach vessel, only evil...

We then see an ominous figure dressed in a black robe, moving through a dark forest setting straight out of the latter HARRY POTTER installments… He opens his lightsaber, which is in the shape of a cross: already gaining the most geek complaints and yet, it doesn’t bother this rabid STAR WARS fanatic one bit...

Not forgetting inserts of a young Princess Leia doppelganger riding a cross between an Endor Speeder and a prequel Podracer, and an intense guy (ala Wedge Antilles via "Llewyn Davis") inside an X-Wing fighter – then a fleet of Xers skimming a lake like speedboats… And closing the show with the fan-adored Millennium Falcon thrusting through blue skies, battling roaring Tie Fighters… This is a supercool image, if overly CGI, reminiscent of director JJ Abram’s reboot STAR TREK as the camera shakes during intense aerial maneuvers.

Some thoughts onto who the narrator is… It sounds like Adam Driver speaking through a device to make him spooky, but word just came in it's Gollum doing a labored pseudo imitation of Darth Vader… And as for why Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher or fellow OT alumni Chewbacca, R2D2 and C3PO weren't shown… That’s obviously for the next teaser… Making this initial show a mere teaser of a second teaser to come...